Beau Monde
by Pawpels
Summary: (RWBY Burlesque AU) Worried about his future, Jaune Arc sets out to excavate a number of his family's failed business properties. One theatre in particular piques his interest...


There's a difference between New Money and Old Money that few people understand, and even fewer experience. New Money is an accomplishment. New Money is a personal success. Old Money is something you're born into. It's a way of thinking that infects your brain long before you're cognizant of what money is, and long after you've lost every penny of it.

The Arcs were Old Money. They'd been Old Money for so long, no one could quite remember when their fortune started. Certainly, the timeline had been peppered with notable entrepreneurs who had done much to increase the family's wealth—like the paternal grandfather who was greatly revered for his contributions to the last war, or his wife whose cool head and treacherous smile were known to close many a business deal in his absence—but the Arcs were known far and wide to want for nothing from the moment of their birth, to the day they inherited their piece of the proverbial pie.

This, at least, had been true up until the present day. It had started with the recession, and had only worsened as the economy dipped further and further into a full-scale depression. First, a small factory in the west had been sold off to a competitor; then, a theatre had been closed down—no buyers daring to snatch up the failed auditorium even at rock-bottom prices. As the workingman found himself with less and less disposable income, the Arcs responded by closing business that catered to his wants. As these businesses closed, a greater population of unemployed drifters emerged in turn—still without cash to spend, but furthermore, without a way to make any more of it. At the expense of its employees, the Arc conglomerate continued to meet quota year after year, and preserve the family's lifestyle, but it was clear that things would not last at this rate.

"You know, son," Mr. Arc had said as he sat by the fire, leafing through the pages of yet another newspaper, "You better hope your sister's find suitable husbands, or there will be nothing left for you."

Mr. Arc laughed at this. Jaune laughed at this. Mr. Arc found it an amusing concept. Jaune did not.

That's how Old Money worked, though. Men were to inherit fortunes, and women were to marry rich men, if they could. Those who could not, carved out an ample slice of capital, and set about making their own destiny. It was a very modern view his father possessed on the matter—one of his very few contemporary thoughts—but not one which served to benefit his only son.

Conversely, while primogeniture was supposed to be a thing of the past, it kept a death-grip around the Arc household. Jaune had seven sisters to call his own, and though he loved them dearly, and felt quite indebted to them for their attention and care in his youth, as they neared adulthood, the children one by one began to view each other as competition.

His oldest sister, pretty and confident, with a bouncing grace that enticed men to grovel on their knees before her, married happily, and easily—to the great relief of her younger siblings. The second, though—testy recluse that she was—had no interest in the concept. She demanded her father teach her the ways of upper management, and without so much as a passive objection, found herself the heir to a great number of the company's properties. By the time the third eldest entered into a union with a lower-middle-class gentleman—affectionately called "The Hood Rat," by their mother—and was gifted several factories with which to start their fortune, Jaune began to worry.

Besides excellent social breading and a flair for compliments, he had no skill with which to make his way in the world. His training as a manager was far from complete, and as the business had, one by one, slipped through his fingers, his private tutor had relaxed the lessons—noting that there wasn't a point in learning the inner workings of a company one had no future with. At this rate, he'd be lucky to work as an accountant for one of his sisters. That was, of course, assuming they'd want anything to do with a useless brother who rarely properly computed his sums.

It was with this in mind that Jaune ventured out into the city one late autumn day, to excavate the remains of several businesses that had been closed down during the recession. The majority of his endeavors had been total busts. Rusted factories and dilapidated corporate offices offered him nothing he could work with. It would likely take more money to get the places clean and operational than it would to begin from the ground up, and Jaune had no great competence with either option.

As twilight set in around him, he was quite ready to give up, but curiosity and convenience of location convinced him to make one final stop in his walking tour, before he would be forced to explain his whereabouts at home.

The final venue was an odd establishment. The plans described it as a theatre, but with the extended subterranean space, and the lack of visual details on the contents of the lower levels, Jaune suspected that perhaps it might have been constructed as a sort of speakeasy, whenever it was that it was constructed. He wondered, briefly, which Arc had taken it upon himself to commission that sort of locale, but as he pushed open the doors, all other thoughts left him.

The place itself was truly disgusting. It's primary attraction, the grand theatre, was utterly trashed. Some of the seats boasted at being merely frayed at the seams, while others were entirely shredded and strewn about the ground; the ceiling had collapsed in the far left corner, and sprinkled a section of the audience in a fine, white dust which Jaune was hesitant to breathe in; and the floor was so water damaged and cracked, he was afraid it might give out under his weight. It was just as disappointing as the other locations. Still, he was far more interested in what lay at the bottom of the stairs than he was in yet another failed business opportunity.

Although it appeared to satisfy several of his predictions, the lower level proved to be much more than Jaune could have possibly expected. Before he noticed anything else, he picked out the bar, lined with bottles upon bottles of liquors and spirits in containers of all shapes and sizes. Next, he observed a relatively small stage that had been set up on the left side of the room, opposite the bar, and sets and sets of tables and chairs between them. None of this particularly surprised him. He was expecting a speakeasy from the plans, and it appeared that he had stumbled upon one. What he hadn't expected—given the age of the place, and it's decaying nature—lay in the details. It was the lack of dust on the bottles of brandy on the shelves. It was the way the surfaces of the tables reflected the dull beam of his flashlight with a pleasant shine. It was the way the floor—with its cracked linoleum, and layers upon layers of pealed away paint exposing ancient concrete—appeared freshly swept. This place was _clean._

He decided to investigate further, and fumbled his way through several yards of red-velvet curtains into what seemed to be a backstage area, even larger than he had imagined it could be. The initial room was filled with all manner of costumes and props. Mannequin heads stared out at him from beneath an assortment of headdresses; a wooden ladder had been haphazardly converted into a corset rack, ribbons and bits of jewelry were indiscriminately tied to the rigging, and the ground was strewn with sequins and feathers, and an inordinate amount of glitter. It was a mess, but clearly well loved.

Beyond this, he found another hallway with what appeared to be dressing rooms, denoted by the stars that hung on their doors. He had barely walked within ten feet of the first, when a noise behind made him turn suddenly, and he was hit in the back of the head by the quick opening swing of a heavy metal door. The world went black, and he crumpled to the ground.

When he awoke, it was to a light, airy breeze around his cheeks—as though soft butterflies were fluttering about his face. He blinked in confusion, as he adjusted to the new light that had permeated throughout the backstage area in his apparent absence, and tried in vain to take stock of his surroundings. There was a sharp ringing in his ears, and his head felt as heavy as lead when he groaned and struggled to lift it off of the hard concrete.

"Are you alright?" a soft voice asked, startling him awake.


End file.
